“Activating Youth Voice in Program Design” Webinar
Led by BUILD’s Youth Advisory Panel
Redwood City, CA – Wednesday, May 18, 2022 — BUILD.org, a national nonprofit organization whose mission is to use entrepreneurship to ignite the potential of youth from under-resourced communities to build Career success, Entrepreneurial Mindsets, and Opportunity, will launch its Youth Advisory Panel (YAP) tomorrow through a student-led webinar, “Activating Youth Voice in Program Design” on Thursday, May 19, 2022 at 3pm PST/6pm EST. The YAP was formed in January 2021, as a part of its systemic change work to advance racial equity by amplifying youth voices and inspiring a diverse new generation of entrepreneurial leaders and changemakers. Participants can register at this webinar link.
Attendees will hear directly from BUILD’s Youth Advisors as they share their learnings, insights, and recommendations based on their innovative work and design sprints over the past year. Participants will also discover how to engage youth as co-designers for their own work as co-creators for programs, policies, and practices that directly impact youth. Educators, youth workers, donors, solution developers, service providers, policymakers, media and those who care about K-12 education are all encouraged to attend.
“Too often the various actors in our K-12 education system attempt to design initiatives and practices without any authentic input from young people themselves. BUILD’s Youth Advisory Panel is giving young people a true seat at the table,” said BUILD’s CEO Ayele Shakur.
The YAP engages BUILD’s young entrepreneurs as equal partners, strategists, designers and thinkers in co-designing and co-creating programs, policies, and interventions aimed to support them. The group is composed of 60 vibrant predominantly Black and Latinx BUILD students and alumni who bring their unique perspectives and design thinking skills to address key questions. The Youth Advisory Panel was recently spotlighted in a blog titled, “Centering Student Voice in K-12 Education Must Be Part of the Path Forward”.
About BUILD.org
Founded in 1999, BUILD is a national nonprofit organization whose mission is to use entrepreneurship to ignite the potential of youth from under-resourced communities to build Career success, Entrepreneurial Mindsets, and Opportunity. BUILD utilizes entrepreneurship education to elevate youth and propel them to academic and career success, while empowering them to become the CEOs of their own lives. BUILD offers programming in 53 cities across the country, has trained over 400 educators, and over 6,000 youth have participated in BUILD’s digital challenges and in-school entrepreneurship programming. For more information, visit www.build.org.
